The Colour of Fire
by swimmingfox
Summary: Sandor takes Sansa with him during the Battle of Blackwater. A tangled relationship ensues... This is 'Little Bird' from Sandor's POV.
1. Chapter 1

**This is my other Sansa/Sandor story 'Little Bird' from Sandor's POV, with a rather different flavour.**

**I'd LOVE to know what people think, and hope that it makes you want to check out my other story for a quite different style and lots of other details and dialogue that you don't get here.**

**WARNING: plenty of salty language in this one! Please don't read it if you're not keen on swearing...**

**All characters are George RR Martin's of course. It's chiefly TV canon. Sansa is sixteen and I imagine that Sandor is a bit younger than his tv persona.**

She – fuck. She looks at me and that damned bottom lip starts trembling. Somehow, telling her I won't bloody hurt her isn't enough. Calling her bird again isn't enough. She still thinks I'm going to eat her up, rape her, worse. I could have done that a hundred times. I take one last look at those eyes, damned Southron pools fit for diving into stark – Stark! – naked and never coming up for air, and lean up, and away, away from her forever, and make for the door. She wouldn't come with me if I was the last fucking man in the Seven Kingdoms. Fucking idiot.

_Wait! I'll – I'm coming._

I listen for the bolt from the other side. There. I move off, down the hallway. Hells. The sweetest two words I've ever heard. I'll ever hear. There's a lump in my throat that I want to scrape out with my sword. It's madness, probably. We could get caught. She'd never survive if she was dragged back here again, in shame, to that blackheart or to the boy and the Queen. And I'd be choking down on a spike before long. I have to get her away, quick, and stay well off the Kingsroad. Hells.

My room first, then the kitchens. A serving lass makes like she's a mouse I've stepped on when I barge in, and is out the door like a flash. I forget how I must look, worse than usual, a dead man wrenched out of the mud.

Then the stables. Ralf's snivelling at the door, not his usual yapping self. Battle's got him spooked. Everyone's spooked, and running, or hiding in a corner somewhere. Best place. I buck him up, and instruct him to get Stranger ready. I walk along the stalls. They're all spooked too. Eyes like boiled eggs. There's a palfrey, one of the lowerborn ladies' probably, good size, bit calmer than the others. She'll do.

Best get back to her, before she changes her mind.

Fucking whore. What are they doing in there? I can hear her, muttering, that foreigner's voice curling like a drawn-out Braavosi blade, words in the bird's ear, words to turn her. She was looking like a late summer leaf in there. It won't take much for her to sway. And all the while I'm waiting out here like a leashed fucking dog. Fucking whore. Fucking wall.

She's tripping after me. I want to dash so fast out of this castle, out of this city, before she changes her mind that I almost keep losing her. She's coming. Thinking of what's going to happen in the next days is like opening a maegi's box. Putting your hand in, reaching down and down into blackness that never ends. I'm going to be free to look at those hands, that skin, that hair – Shit. I turn round and she collides into me, and flies back. She's like her own damned doll. Or one of those stick figures that crones make to fright the spirits, not that it does. You could snap her like a young twig. Got to do something with that hair.


	2. Chapter 2

I take her to my chamber, for the cloaks. Bit risky. Catch her gawping. My room probably looks like a cell to her. Not too many mirrors and books and dried fucking flowers in here. Well, good – she needs to see that we don't all live like her, wrapped in damned silk. I put my old cloak over her – bit better than the last time I had to cover her with one. Sick fucking bastards. My hands brush her ears as I put the hood up. As cute as a damned wolf-pup. _Wolf_-pup? Wine talking.

I shove her into the doorway at the hint of noise. My damn nerves are sparking. Could be anyone – could be the other Kingsguard cunts, sent by the boy to fetch me back, if he'd coughed his pride back up. Little craven. Probably getting the shit scraped from his britches. Hiding behind a fucking_ imp_. And then she's telling me I'm hurting her. The thought of bruising her bony elbow gives me a pain in my gut. Or maybe that's the wine, too.

She can't fucking ride, that's as plain as the day. I have to lead her through the peasants, who claw at us, good as dead. The sky is the colour of a man who can't take his drink.

Fire. If I'd known that the Imp was going to play that trick I'd have been gone days ago. Might as well have tipped me headfirst into the Seven Hells. Fire flooding up from the earth. The sea burning. Screaming. The hiss. There were dark men in the fire, all of them Gregor. All of them me. The sellsword laid the last one low though. I owe him, if I ever see him again.

It was a mess at the gate. Was always going to be, once they recognised the bird. And now my shoulder's a mess too, the first guard got me - deep enough to feel like an animal is hanging off me by the teeth. No time to stop and check it, though. No time to shut to Gate. Fuck it. Fuck them. Let them escape, if they can.

The wind's lashing. She's keeping up, just about. The further we get away, the less the wildfire is ringing in my head. Flashes every time I blink. Men on fire. Turning their arms about, tossing fire from their fingers. Fire yelling. Got to get further away.

It's getting light. There's been no one on the road. She's drooping in the saddle, not much more than a dress hanging on a line. I swing her by the ankle, lift her down – how can she have blood and bones in her, when she's so light? Her face pinches when it dawns on her that we're sleeping out here. Probably imagined me waiting on her hand and foot at inns as big as castles. That's not going to happen. Out here, we're going to be even. She's going to learn the way other people live – _real_ people. My shoulder's killing me.

She curls up like a hedgehog. Ha – that's good, I could nose her, roll her about and get a mouthful of spikes, probably. I wait 'til she's asleep, and have a look at the shoulder. Fuck, it hurts. The skin's spongey, still bleeding. Wine on the shoulder, wine down the hatch. Shirt to bind it.

She's awake and wanting to help. Ay, come on then bird, I think, come over here and suck on it, that'll make me feel better. I shrug her off and this time I know she's asleep. Her breath's rattling, a little dry leaf caught on a fence wire. Now I know what she sounds like when she sleeps. Just think on that. Wine. Head's fucked too, now.

I wake up feeling like Stranger's lying on my skull, gnawing at my shoulder thinking I'm an apple. My gut's churning. Haven't slept off enough of that Dornish slop yet.

She's gone. Leaves flattened, a little bird-hedgehog-shaped wax seal in the mud. Fuck. She wouldn't, would she? What, I get her out of the gate and far enough away and she legs it? She's come to her senses and realised that nesting in the woods with a murderous half-faced dog isn't her idea of fun? No, wait – her horse is still here. The bags. I have a look: that stupid doll, jewels – what, couldn't live without a few bits of shiny metal? – dress, stockings, underdress. I finger that last one. Gods man, put it away. Find her.


	3. Chapter 3

Little bitch. My fucking sword hand, right under the thumb. _Fuck_, hurts as bad as the shoulder. So, she'd tucked a blade away and was willing to use it. Was she always planning to, if I got too close? What the hells was she doing out there, looking for five-leaf fucking violets? She's more like that runt sister of hers than I thought. I can see the damned tendons in there. Maybe I'll rip the thumb off, give it to her as a present, a reward for stabbing me so hard.

I hope she comes back.

Alright, so I have should have remembered that she still pisses and shits and breathes just like the rest of us. I should have probably not crept up on her like Varys in his fucking silk slippers. Still. She's as jumpy as an untrained filly.

I'm keeping that whore's dagger. Couldn't help enjoying her face, when I told her about her maid, whoring herself to the Imp. How could she not have known? So damned trusting. Seeing the good in everyone, even when there's none there. It's like two halves of beetroot have been rubbed on her cheeks.

I make her change her dress. Could've made her do right in front of me. I can see her arms in that white slip from behind the tree. All I'd need to do is pull her elbows back, and –. She doesn't like it, her dress, she's pulling a face, but she still looks better than any of them. She pulls another face when I tear her other dress for a bandage. Serves her right. I can't just let her stab me and go soft on her. I rescued her and she slices my fucking hand in two.

I dump the white cloak. That's the end of my time serving, right there, the flapping skin of a month-old corpse. Twenty fucking years. And for what? Free board and food and plenty of mens' blood under my nails. Fucking Kingsguard – it was an insult rubbing shoulders with those bog-faced cunts, watching them hit her and get hard doing it. I had to curl my fists into leadballs and chew my cheek 'til it bled, whilst the boy licked his lips. Rampant little fuck. He had been starting to get out of control, whores coming out of his chamber barely able to walk, or speak, or see. The thought of her being wedded – _bedded_ – to him had made me more sick than wine ever could. He'd have ruined her – that face she'd pull on, the one like a statue, wouldn't have lasted long once she was queen. She doesn't know how lucky she is.

She's scared of Stranger – who isn't? – but she has a good go. She's got spirit, that's true enough, and he slobbers all over her hand. He likes apples, I tell her. Me and him both.

We go to find water.


	4. Chapter 4

What the fuck just happened? She goes from jabbing me to washing my face in riverwater like a damned maidservant. She was right – _there_, squashing flowers into my hand, touching my bad side, calm as a battle-nurse. And I was – _letting her_. And then she tells me I look less monstrous and she might have well have kneed me in the balls. Tried to make up for it but I know what she meant. She'll always see me as a monster, nothing more, just as long as I have this face.

I've had dreams where I'm clawing it off, peeling back layer after layer only to find more of it underneath, never-ending, raw, thick as staghide. Father paid someone to make me a mask and then said I looked more of a fool, that I'd have to wear it with honour. _Honour _– as if I'd won it in a battle and not at Gregor's hands. I've used it as a weapon, and it works too, but that means I get men, women, children all reeling back just when I've come to get oats or a new belt or my sheets washed. What I am going to do, _melt_ on them?

She hates it out here. I don't care. I tell her we need to stay off the Kingsroad, shadow it to the east. It's the truth, mostly. I just want to have her to myself, just for a bit. Just to look. I can look at her even if I don't want her to look at _me_ ever again. Hells, her knee was touching my thigh back there at the river.

She's hardly said a word all day. Just keeps eyeing me sideways as if I'm going to bite her. _She's_ the one that bites. Blades and words.

I have to make a fire. Haven't done this for a long time. It's like trying to feed a wild animal. And I _have_ to get close to it. I picture my whole head on fire.

I wake up suddenly in the night, thinking the fire's become a lake, surrounding me. My throat's like the Red Waste. I take some wine, quick. The skin's getting lighter, too light. There's a noise and she's wriggling, feet going like mad against the leaves. So she has nightmares too. Suppose she's had enough trouble to earn them. I walk over to her, soft as a cat, I hope. The fire's about dead and all I can see is a bundle. She's whimpering. My head's swimming a bit and I feel like lying down next to her and pulling her to me and shushing her but she'll wake up and think she's fallen from one nightmare into another, probably. Fuck, this shoulder.

I _will_ keep her safe though, in my own way. I said I would. And that means feeding her too. And having something to soak up the wine in me. I'm out – should have rationed it. I'm a fool. I need it as much as she needs a blanket round her shoulders. So I sit and wait at the bottom of the field where I saw hares last night. It's early enough for there to be a mist dawdling over the grass, like the ghosts of fresh soldiers.

My bow arm's fucked now, but we need to eat. Not done much archery training – my place has always been with the scrappers in the swordsyard, trying to find someone who can match me. The Kingslayer is one – wonder what state_ his_ sword hand is in right now. Those fucking Lannisters: what a family. A tyrant with my brother at his bidding, a cross-eyed dwarf, a brother and sister who definitely know each other too well and a boy who's the spawn of them both. As soon as I heard it spoken of I knew it to be true. There's not a breath of the drunk king on him. The little ones are probably theirs too, hair like cornfields, not that they're twisted in the head like him. Not yet. There's still time. Though maybe it's different when you're raised to be a king. - There's one. Wait 'til it's closer. I'm not going to be chasing arrows all morning. That's what squires are for. Maybe I should get the bird to squire for me instead of leaving her all wrapped up, face scrunched like she's thinking too hard. Now – let's see what my left arm's aim is like.

Everything is a bit calmer on the ride this morning. I'm doing my damndest not to snap at her, even though my hand's still stinging to fuck. Even though she called me a monster. I keep looking round to check she's not fallen off. She looks tired. That hair's beginning to look like tangleweed. I like it.

She's stopped, way back down the path. Been so damned quiet I didn't notice straight off. What's she doing back there? Maybe she's taking a piss. I'll take my time.

She looks like she's snared in a bramble bush. And then she totters towards me, holding her skirts up. I can see her ankles. And she's got a mouth on her like a wolf on a deer. And she chucks all the blackberries in the sack I give her and I swear, it's the first smile I've seen on her since – I don't know. Before her father, maybe. And I touch the corner of her mouth where the stain's worst before I think about why I shouldn't and she doesn't turn and run.


	5. Chapter 5

Thank fuck. I was beginning to think even I'd have to find a town or an inn soon. You can't hunt wine with a bow and arrow. Blackberries – unless they've been pounded by maidens' feet and left in a dark cellar anyway – aren't going to do the job, picked by her or not. The cart's come up like an answer to a prayer. The only thing I'll ever pray for, probably. She's on my back though, telling me I can't steal it, snipping at me like I'm a child.

She wins, too. The wine-seller looks like he'd been bathing in the stuff himself, but still thinks he can spin her a line, like she'd look at him twice without heaving. But she turns on the charm and does that thing she always did at King's Landing, _pretends_. She thinks I can't tell when she's pretending and when she's not. And she makes me hand over coin to that fat shit. It's not even _red_, it's fucking straw-thin piss. Hardly tastes of anything. She looks damned smug about it, too.

Still, it digs a hole in my belly, somewhere to bury my thoughts. It's night and I show her how to skin the hare. I can hear her teeth scutting together and she looks yellow to the neck, but she manages to watch, at least until the head needs severing. - That's when she changed. A little girl, all smiles, trying hard for her prince, wearing a dress that looks like a pale summer sky, and then she's on the floor, her daddy's head held in the air by Payne, and the next time she stands up, she's different. Older. She might pretend she's in love with the boy, but I know that she's clinging on for dear life and it's all a fucking game.

She's sitting there, other side of the fire, legs folded under her as perfectly as a fresh pile of laundry, thumbing her jewels, like they're more precious than living is, like they're not just scraps of bashed-in metal. And there I am, looking at her looking at her jewels.

Then she picks up her doll and all I see is a damned child. Well, she needs to grow up. Though maybe I shouldn't have said what I say about her father. Words come out faster than a bolting horse sometimes. And she pays me back and gives me the story of my face – Baelish, that_ cunt_ – as if she's always known it, as if everyone knows it, as if there's a fucking broadsheet with it on, nailed into tree trunks all over Westeros.

I feel like she's fucking stripped me and is looking at me, unimpressed. So I tell her I'll kill Gregor – and I will – and she looks like she cares, like she'd kill him too if she saw him. And I think about that, about what he'd try to do to her if he ever saw, and what I'd do to him before he got near her, fucking pull his guts out of his throat and wrap them round his thick fucking bullneck and then she asks me if I'm burnt all over and I think of her sneering at me naked and say it all wrong again. And she gives me a mouthful that I deserve, probably. She makes me feel worse than a dog - a gnat, and I feel shamed.

I'm not used to kindness. It itches. I say sorry, in my own way, once she's over there and giving me the shoulder and can't give me that look, a winter rainfall coming.

Gregor. The biggest ghost of them all. He leaves great hoofprints all over the country, men and women bleeding in his wake, and people think I'm him too. _This_ is Gregor, this face is his dirty great handprint, him shouting at everyone from my cheek. He branded me with his black fucking heart.

And in the winefog as I go to sleep I suddenly remember that I used her name.


	6. Chapter 6

_Sizzling and his hand there on my ear and I'm there for a lifetime fingers reaching through my skull and the deafening crack and I'm up and I see skin on the logs – my ear – and all I hear is me, melting._

I keep my head down the next day. Probably best if I don't open my mouth, just so I can avoid that look on her face like she's Mother, Maiden and Crone in one. I do have to stop her stuffing her mouth full of black bryony though. That would have been a sight, the bird heaving up poisonberries onto her skirts. She's got a stomach on her – half the time she's in the bushes or hanging off a branch. I like her like this. Dress grubby, mud under her fingernails, eyes keen, not looking for bows and scrapes and chances to curtsey. Not pretending. I like how straight she sits it the saddle, hair as bright as a torch in the night. She almost falls off grabbing some apples for us, and I think about eating one out of her hand. Just wish she'd stop calling me 'ser' all the time – she might as well just poke me in the ear with a stick.

She's right next to me that night, peering at my pathetic fire, offering to do it. My pride rises like hackles, then. She means well, I see it, but she has my weak spot now – I feel like a little boy.

I'm trying to ease back on the wine. It's not enough to knock me out as I'd like. There's a storm off, and she wakes, full of fear – I can just see her sitting up, the whites of her eyes. She's been choking it down, but she's terrified, still, of what might happen. She's right to be. But at least she's not looking so terrified of me.

The light is like fireswords in my eyes. That wine's a killer. She's darkdreaming again, snuffling like a little animal. There's thunder again and I think, the rain's coming this time, and then I hear that it's men, not thunder, and they're not far off. Fuck.

In a heartbeat, I've crept over to her, thinking do we need to fly, thinking how do I wake her, thinking Gods, don't scream. I cover her mouth and watch her grab me and in a different story I'd have opened her up to me in an instant but there's no time to think like that and I keep her quiet, and she understands. The men and the horses pass and we're safe again. I'm touching the mud on her knuckles. She's been pressing hard on the dagger wound and fuck, it hurts, but it's the sweetest pain I'll ever have.

I keep us on small tracks, the old ways, before kings sent thousands stumbling and cursing into the mud. I skirt well off the towns, not that there are many out here. Keep to the woods. Those men sounded too light of heart to be after us. If you'd been sent by Cersei you might as well have a sword digging into your back, drawing just enough blood to keep you moving. Fact that we've been safe so far makes me wonder if Stannis won. The bird wouldn't be his first thought – he'd need to shore up the city first, make an example of traitors. I try to picture the boy's head on a spike. I don't feel remorse. Boy had it coming. He couldn't rule a kingdom anymore than he could sleep at night without shouting for his mummy. Bird's got more backbone than he'd ever have. You've been too cruel to her, dog. She wants to learn, so let her.

I help her with her fire. Her eyes turn Valerian trying, and it's all I can do not to laugh out loud. But I put my hands over hers to get the stick moving before I know what I'm doing. Her hands are so small. Delicate as a potter's finest. I can smell the mint she's been chomping on all afternoon.

The look on her face when the flames take: like she's helped birth a bloody lamb. _Real_ pride, not some reedback asking her to dance and her having to say yes. And she eats that bird like she means it – maybe her white wolf flew into her when Stark killed it – no airs or graces. She asks for an inn and I don't snap, but it's too dangerous. Probably. I don't want to give her up to anyone just yet, not when she's looking at me with grease shining on her fingers and quail in her teeth.

I listen to her rocking back and forth in her dreams, a little rowboat in a squall. I take a look at the shoulder. Starting to yellow. Hurts to fuck. She'd been asking what I'm going to do once I've dropped her at the feet of her mother. Survival's been the first thought, keeping low, nothing more. I'm just starting to recognise the taste of freedom – something clear, like springwater. Something to unfog my head. Not sure I'm ready for it yet.

I'm curious to get north, test myself. Never been further than Winterfell, that one time. I like the land-lie there, hiding nothing, full of teeth. But that might be madness. Winter's coming. The Starks say that true enough. Never been over the sea – not that I've the Dothraki fear in me, I'd do it. Just not sure the hot weather's for me. I said to her about maidens not wearing much just to make her blush those beetroots again. Wouldn't mind it though – girls plump as ripe grapefruits, smelling of trade spices, spilling cream, either side of me, if I could just get them to ignore my face. But then they both become her and I have to put the blanket over my head and suffocate myself to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

I've less of a head this morning, first time in a long time. Bit shaky, but alright.

She wants to call me – by my name. Last person to call me Sandor was, Gods, the housekeep probably, whacking me on the arse with a rag and giving me a handful of mulberries. Father called me pup – until the face, and then he didn't call me much of anything, and Gregor would spit _runt_ at me and black my eye if I bit back. When _she_ does, calling up the path to me, asking about some blade-tipped plants as if I'm a damned maester, my stomach gives. Gods. She caught my eyes on her this morning too – I was helpless, her leg was there, so white it practically glowed. Fine little golden hairs, shinbone. And I swear, her fixing that dagger on her ankle almost got me hard. Hells.

Getting pretty good with my left arm now. Never would have thought myself much of a huntsman but then never would have thought that the bird – Sansa. I mean, Sansa – would be rooting out mushrooms and sniffing them like a boar, or sparking a fire, or scrubbing down Stranger and giving him what for, either.

_Sansa_. Rolls off the tongue like _sunset_.

She ruins it later, though. Bloody gives away one of my hares. Hares I spent a sunrise waiting for, freezing my arse off while she slept again. Hells, she can sleep. And there she goes, without a thought, slinging it at some King's Landing strays who'll be dead tomorrow, or the next day, with my hare wasting in their corpses. She's too damned kind for her own good. And for mine. She gets between my teeth. Gods damn her.

Still, I make her pay well enough, hunting the rabbits. It's sweet as hells watching her try with the bow, seeing that long neck flush, her blood right up. And I get behind her to see her arm straight, so she's got at least a scrap of a chance. There's a slick of dirt on her collarbone. She smells of wild garlic. And mushrooms. She misses all three times and looks ready to turn into a thundercloud. I stop myself laughing, just about, and go to collect the arrows, leaving her to steam.

The last one fell over the hill, next to a couple of bloody lazy rabbits who hardly move when I come close. So I stand still, making like a tree, and I slip my dagger out and hurl it, and fuck me if it doesn't get one. And I take up the arrow and sort of shove it into the dagger wound. She'll never know the difference. It's worth it for the grin on her face. She's smiled more in the last day than I ever saw her smiling at King's Landing, though maybe she just wasn't smiling at me. Well, she is now.

Though not so much when I get her to skin it. She won't say no to a challenge, that's plain enough. Starkblood lodged in her like grit. She can't bring herself to do the head but that would be like asking me to slam a squealing rabbit's nose into the fire. I keep the rabbit tail for her. Used to do that for Fira when she was wee. She had a little row of them on her windowsill, dusty in the light, for all the luck it brought her. Luck was a hollow word in the Clegane house. Maybe no such thing as luck anyway. Just what you make of it.

And then I find myself telling her about it all – Fira, Father, Gregor, his teeth everywhere. I've never told anyone. She looks like she's damn near brimming over. She doesn't cry though, just gives me another one of those looks, like I'm a wolf-pup she's rearing. And then she comes out with it, asks me if I was ever married._ Gods_. How does she not understand? That looking like this, that being a_ Clegane_, is not most women's idea of a happyeverafter. I don't belong at the end of a song.

She starts making niceties, making it worse with every word, likening me to a eunuch and a dwarf and a crippled boy and a fucking mute executioner and expecting me to be thankful for it. Well, I'm not. I hate it and always will. I hate her looking at it, which she's doing more and more, not a trace of fear. I try and hide it from her, keep her to my good side – as good as it's ever going to get, anyway.

And I blurt out that she's so fucking perfect – tongue riding brain, I'm no better than her - and I want to just crawl into a hole. Now she's lying there so quiet on the other side of the fire, chewing on it. I know she's not sleeping because I know how she sleeps now. She doesn't understand that I don't mean with her hair all braided and her sleeves floating down, but_ now_, pulling that bowstring towards the rabbits while her jaw grows tight, knuckles getting a bit raw, strands of hair all over the place. Gods, I've a bellyful of her. Wine's out. How I'll ever sleep.

We're quiet again the next day. It's like the firetime each night tips us upside down and we say all our pieces all wrong, they just tumble out, and then we're righted again the next morning, ready to start afresh. It's good to be out from under her eyes for a bit, sitting in grassland, waiting for birds. She's making my shoulders hurt, keeps looking at me like I'm a riddle, and when I turn, her eyes jump away. I've left her chattering to the horses – never would have thought Stranger would be so soft. Sky's the colour of robins' eggs and clouds like rolls of paper being tossed out. Ah, there - got it – grouse for dinner, then. I'm not done, though.

I get down to the smallholding – I could smell the bread from all the way up on the hill. The door's open and I amble in, and there's a woman there, and she brings her hand up to her mouth, and then puts it down again and looks fierce. Gods, there's something in the air – no one's afraid of me anymore. Do you have food, I say, and she says ay. What have you got then, I ask her, and she looks like she wants to punch me, and says bread and cheese and when I say I'll have some then, she says or what? And I say or I'll slice both your hands off and then you'll bake no more, and she has little angry tears then and hands it over. But hells, I can see Sansa's bottom lip going and her eyes like chips off the Wall, and I go back and leave a coin on her fireplace and the woman looks at me like I'm a complete idiot, and I get out of there as quick as I can.

What is she doing to me? I wanted to look at _her_, not have her look at me, have her voice itching in my skull. I don't know what I was expecting, but I thought she'd be more - trouble, more like a highborn. But this night, here she is, I've set her plucking the bird and she's doing it like she's been a bloody kitchenwench her whole life.

I could ask her to do anything and she'd have a go. Well, not anything, not – as much as I'd like. I think of shoving her up against a Red Keep wall and demanding a song, breathing wine into her face, her blinking me away – not exactly a way to a woman's heart. I wonder if she'd do it now. If I asked nicely.


	8. Chapter 8

And she does. She bloody well kneels in front of me as if she's in her godswood, and looks me straight in the eye and sings. Swans and drowning and tears like salt, I don't know, I'm not really listening to the story, just her voice, which is like a swift on the wind. I swear I could hear it forever and not tire of it much. And her hair's all falling round her shoulders and all I want to do is snatch her damn hands up and catch that song in my mouth. I'd ask her for another except she's blushing like a first-time whore and then she asks _me_ for a song. I manage to bat that one away and next thing I know I'm pledging her a fighting lesson.

I watch her sleep and think of my mother. There's just a nub of candle lighting the memory - I'm a dwarf in a big heavy bed, and there's her face over me, and she's singing that song, or something like it. Words are like bees in my head, nuzzling.

In the morning, she's bundled up like an abandoned bastard, just that hair peeking out. Right then you, let's see you fight. She gets wet eyes talking about her sister – _she'd_ run a sword through you as soon as look at you, though she'd only reach your thighs. Ha, probably deadliest of all then. But Sansa goes one step ahead of me, brings my shortsword up, right up, to my neck, a look in her eyes like she'd do it too. And I think,_ go on then_, let's see you hurt me. I probably deserve it. And she's bringing the blade to the points I've shown her, the top of my thigh, gut, right there at the crotch, and hells, she's doing it on purpose, course she is, there's a spark in her eyes I haven't quite seen before. Like a flint as it takes. It's like we're dancing – the nearest I'll ever bloody come to it anyway. And I think come on then, you little wildling, let's see what you've got and then I think, _fuck_, she could actually bleed me, and get the damned thing off her.

I get my own back, push a bit further, bring her hand up and her dagger with it right up to my throat, but she looks at me, not afeared, just - waiting. And I don't know what the fuck we're doing and I turn it into a joke and fall backwards, doing my best dying. She gives me her hand to help me up, and I could pull her right down onto me but I let her tug and keep her hand a while too long instead. Gods, she is slipping under my skin. Truer than any blade.

I let her go on ahead today, and watch her hips roll with her mare. She turns her chin over her shoulder to check where we're going of a time, and with each look she's killing me. I thought – I don't know – that she'd be all high and mighty and it's true she's as proud as seven hells but – I don't know. There's an eagle overhead. Been following for us for a league, maybe two. Waiting for my damned corpse, probably. And I think like a rhyme, like a song, _she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl_.

She spots trout in the river when we're resting the horses. Takes me back to being about as tall as her little sister, in the moats at home with Fetch. He taught us – both of us, before Gregor got the blackblood – how to trap, hunt, how to wait. He'd spin stories I was too young to hear under his ale-breath while we sat quiet, waiting for pheasants to roll on over, hares to get cocky. And he taught us to catch fish with our hands, said we wouldn't always have a net or an arrow, said we should be able to let the Gods' own kind come right into our fingers, that we were all part of the same mud and blood as them. Gregor would be too impatient and thrash off, cursing. But I'd wait, and they'd come. So in I go, up to my knees, back in the moat again. She won't come in of course – too damned proper for that, no matter what's gone on. And then I look up and she's wriggling out of her dress and I think my heart's fucking stopped.


	9. Chapter 9

She's coming towards me, a damned wraith - bare feet, all pale-calved, that white underdress hanging to her knees - like she's come to ghost right through me, howling in my ears. I'm standing there with my jaw severed and remember why I'm there and shush her, shove my hands in the river. I show her – badly, as it happens – how to hang, still as a reed, how to catch it. I lose the fucking thing and it's her go, and then I'm allowed to look. Knee-deep in river, in her bloody underthings. I can see the skin of her, below her neck, a little pulse going. Fuck.

And we have a fight with a fish, damned thing's as slippery as the eunuch, and I end up having to smash its head in on the bank. I turn round and Sansa's laughing so bloody hard, it's falling out of her like she _is_ the damned river and hells, she's so fucking beautiful. She makes me want to gather all the fish from the river and chuck them at her just to make her squeal like that some more, and I want to be the fish slipping through her fingers. She's on the bank now, still laughing like a dungeon lunatic. It's like King's Landing has had been gripping her by the back, and been loosing, claw by claw, and it's almost gone.

She's pretty soft on the rain, though. Starts coming down and it's like she's never been rained on before. She goes very quiet and a bit sour-faced. Well, none of us _like_ the bloody rain, but you don't have to look so damned soupy about it. Still, it's only getting worse so I go looking for proper shelter. Beginning to feel a bit guilty about not putting a roof over her head.

By some bloody miracle, there's a big yawn of a tree, an old hollowed-out trunk wide enough for both of us. I get her in and me after. Nearest I've been to her, for sleeping. She looks pretty damned grouchy over it though and I think, what, have I not done enough for you, girl? She won't eat - _her_, with a stomach like a bloody endless cave. I hope to the Gods that I don't smell as bad as I think I do, rain steaming off me. Maybe that's why she's scrunched up as far away from me as she can get. Gods, the rain. Horses won't be happy. She goes to sleep, head tucked away so I can hardly see her. She keeps shivering, juddery little breaths, so I put my cloak over her knees. Hells, I wish I had wine.

She wakes me up early, jerking around like a rabbit in a wire. She's flung her cloak off, and mine, so I steal it back. Her eyes are shut and she's bashing her head a bit on the trunk, and saying something, over and over like a healer's spell, something like _send the head back, send the head back_. Her voice isn't her own, she sounds like a child, that or a crone, as old as this tree. And then she's awake, and her face looks like clay.

We get going and she's put away all of our water, and looking like she'll drop off her damned mare any moment. Great. I've an ailing waif on my hands. I leave her to go and get water. I can only do what I do best: food, water, moving. I'll get her to an inn at least. We must be near Fernback or one of those other poxy little villages. I hate the thought of us being recognised – there's only so many men I can kill. If it's a search party, we're fucked.

Skins filled down at the stream, I walk Stranger back up the slope. Even he's a grumpy bastard this morning, wants a bloody stable and not being rained on, probably. I'm shoving his arse up the last few strides when I hear voices, men's voices, and Sansa's in there with them, and it's like someone's put a cold blade to the front of my throat, and I move fast. And do what I do best.


	10. Chapter 10

Two men. One's on her hand. She yells. Other's hand's on belt buckle, sword dropping to the ground. Backs to me. I'm too far. Loose an arrow, pray to the Gods. He falls, practically on her. The other runs, but he's blind. I get him, stomach. Third man's at the mare, slashing her at the belly, fumbling for his bow, all thumbs. I'm in him before he can pull back, and bring my sword up, up through him, until he bubbles and is down. Second man's still moving, not much, and I smash my boot on his face and slice his neck and he doesn't move then.

She's crumpled up, a pile, like she's boneless. I bring her up to me, sitting, hit her cheeks a bit, hard as I can without bloody scaring her, but she's not really there, eyes like fogged glass, limp as anything. Fuck fuck fuck. I check her: dress isn't torn, gently lift it up, just a little, please don't be scared Sansa, tip her towards me, have a look at her back, her shoulders. No marks on her. Her wrist's fucked, nothing else as far as I can see. But fucking hells, she's all over the place. I put a hand on her forehead and she's blazing like a furnace and I say come on Sansa, wake up, you're alright now, it's me, you're alright, and she looks at me and the fog clears just for a moment and she says don't leave me in a faraway voice like she's away past the Wall and then she's gone again.

I pick her up, carry her to Stranger and go to the mare. She's lying, knees buckled, heaving, a great ugly slash in her belly. The cunt. I put a hand between her ears, talk soft to her, tell her she did well and that she's alright, and throat her, quick as I can, end her properly. The blood becomes a lake around her head.

Stranger's quiet, he knows she's gone. Blows through his nose at me, no more, as I load up Sansa's bundles. She's like a haybale, sticking out awkwardly, and I haul her onto the horse, get myself up behind her quick as I can before she slumps off. Stranger jerks forward and I have to give him a kick to make him move, and get out of here as fast as possible.

She wakes and sleeps, and again, a little wave breaking. I've got her hoisted to me, arm round her waist, least romantic thing ever. Fuck, come on, Sansa. Maybe it's the shock. And she's got a fever, I'm sure of it. Maybe they did get her – I daredn't look that far. Fuck. We ride, and I'm killing them over and over, and harder, more guts spilled, blood, screaming, and I'd do it a thousand times. Her head's rolling like her neck's just twine, and I tip it back towards me before she hurts herself. There's a pain in my stomach like I'm the one who's been sliced.

I'm not fussing over being spotted now. We ride on the bigger tracks, and stop at the first place we come to, a smallholding, goats and chickens and a stable. A man comes out, sees me and swift as anything goes inside again. Out comes a woman, youngish, folding her arms at me, frowning. She takes in my face, and Sansa, and asks if she's well. I say what does it bloody look like and she says I'm not bloody helping you if you're going to be like that and I swallow my pride down and tell her I've coin and ask nicely. Her voice changes then and her face goes soft, and I lift Sansa off, and carry her in.

The woman bustles in ahead of me, takes me straight into a bedroom, theirs it looks like. Bedsheets all amiss. I lower Sansa down, gentle as I can, and she looks at me properly for a half-breath and my heart damned near breaks. The woman picks up her arm and looks at me hard. Not me, I say, thinking I'll break your bloody arm if you as much as suggest that again. I tell her about the men, leaving out all the killing, though her eyes are roving over the blood on my armour – the third one spilt plenty. She gets me to hoist Sansa up to get her dress taken off, and I'm looking everywhere but at her. Heweg! she yells, loud enough to wake the Others, not that Sansa as much as blinks. I say, I don't know if – and I can't fucking say it, and she doesn't understand for a moment until I look at my feet and then she says alright, out you go, I'll have a good look at her, and damned near pushes me out of the door. Her man comes in with a bucket of water, just gives me a nod and a smile, calm, as if to say we'll see you right.

I pace outside. Those fucking cunts. They had their hands on her. Had her on the ground. Who were they? Mummers? Bandits? We're not all that far from Harrenhall now, and Gregor. If they're anything to do with him, or a search party – I don't know if they knew her face. Didn't stop to ask. Well, let them fucking come. I'll fucking take them all if I have to die trying. There's a hen at my feet, feathers golden red, and I don't know whether to kick it or bury my face in it. Gods, can't stand waiting.

The woman's just pulling a smock over Sansa's legs - I see her thighs, her knees. As long and pale as new candles. She bids me come to the bed, rolls Sansa to me a bit so she can cover her with the bedclothes. She's as cold as anything now, river mud. Hells. I can feel her bones under my fingers. The woman tucks her in, says says she's not been touched, and I nod, feeling like all my breath's dropped down to my gut. I say what do you think's wrong and she says a fever, and the shock of that, jerking her head at Sansa's wrist. Her man – Heweg, it was – has come back in with a pile of rags and a handful of young sticks, willow maybe. I watch her clean up the wrist. There's not much blood, but you can just see the bone – her fucking _bone_ – and it makes me want to put my fist through the window. She soaks the rags and uses two of the sticks and wraps her up. Sansa's not moved. How bad is it? I ask and the woman shakes her head, says we'll just wait and see, and they go out of the room for a bit.

I stand looking at her. My little bird. Not yours, dog. Her lips are just apart, like she's about to whistle, head to the side. Hair spread out all over the damned place. I've never felt so fucking helpless. I crash into the chair in the corner, and pick up her dress and her smock. It's like I'm holding her in my hands, she's falling between my fingers, I'm breathing her in. They smell of hay and mud and sweat and meadowflowers. Gods, don't bloody die on me, Sansa.


	11. Chapter 11

I don't move. The woman, Elisota – she thrusts her name at me as if expecting mine in return – comes back with candles, brings some food. Puts rags on Sansa's brow, and has a good squint at me. Maybe I should take a look at you and all, she says. I say leave me be, woman, I can look after myself and she says that's as maybe but you're holding your shoulder low. She helps me get my armour off and I eye her as she gestures for my shirt and she says oh I've seen plenty in my time, big man, you won't surprise me. And it's true, the wound's looking angry as a dragon, and she fetches more water and I sit there, eyes on Sansa, thinking well here we are little bird, in a chamber with half our clothes off. Elisota comes back and scrubs at it like it's a stain on the wall and puts on a poultice and wraps me up tight. She's trying to get the truth from me all the while – she doesn't seem to know either of us so I spin her a story. I give Sansa's name as Fira. First thing that comes into my head.

Sansa sleeps for a day, and more. I take a candle over to her in the night and she looks like a bloody corpse, fucking terrifies me. But I see her chest rising, and falling, just enough. Heweg brings me wine - a man after my own heart even if he seems to be fucking mute. I don't sleep. What if she dies? What would it all have been for? Then I think shut up you bloody fool, you got her out, didn't you? What did you bloody expect? And I know the answer and I won't look it in the face and just sit there, the damned goats stuttering like raving madmen.

She starts her dreaming again, and I think, maybe she'll be alright. It's like she's under a maegi's hand, flicking her head, fingers twitching. She shouts and mumbles, tangled words tumbling out of her, and I hear _Bran_ and _never go there_ and _she wasn't lying_. Later she says _Sandor please stay here_ and I say I'm not going anywhere little bird, but she doesn't hear me.

Elisota has been as cool as anything but I see her face change after the second night, brightening. She says the fever's broken I reckon and though I can't see much difference I take her at her word.

She's with us when Sansa starts murmuring, like a dove's come to roost, and opens her eyes. I jump up and practically crack my skull open on the ceiling. Her eyes have lost that seaweed look, and she begins to turn her head, finally seeing. She's alright. I duck away, feeling like _my_ fever's broken and all.

I go to Stranger's stall. He harrumphs as if to say where the hells have _you_ been and I whack him on the rump and feel my legs go. Must be half a day before I come to. I've been dreaming – head feels like it's been shaken about like a bloody bag of pebbles. Cave lions swatting my face and boats breaking apart and worms swarming over peaches and one of the whores I saw more than once laughing her head off at me, then covering me up with bedcloth after bedcloth 'til I can't breathe.

It's night, and I stumble inside. Elisota's got Sansa's dress on her lap and has a needle to it, yarn in mouth. Doesn't stop her jawing to me though, whilst her man's got his hands folded over her belly, round as a plum, listening. He brings out cards from his sleeve while she yaps away, and starts dealing them out to me. Fine, man, I'll play shortdrift with you, you bloody silent wonder, let's see how you speak with the cards. He keeps pouring me wine and all I'm thinking as he lays out another damned knight is – she's alright.

I wake back in the stables with a thick head and a mouthful of hay. Morning light might as well have me round the neck and be punching me in the face. I feel my coin bag. Lighter. That sly bastard. I walk around, get a bellyful of air, grab a few apples for Stranger, and finally bring myself to go and see her. Been putting it off. I'm afraid, somehow, to see her.


	12. Chapter 12

She's sitting up, all bandaged, in that smock, and looking like – _her_ again. She's eating, and giving me a smile and I realise I've been breathing tight for the last two days, balancing on a cliff-ledge. She gets out of me about calling her Fira and I sound like a bloody soft fool. I have to tell her about her mare, which damned near kills me. She has a proper little battle with her tears and I'm trying to look sad and ignore the part of me that's looking forward to having her sitting up with me.

There's a last night getting blindrobbed by Heweg and I bunk up in the stable again. The shoulder's a bit better, even if my head's dundered. Whatever she put on there must've worked. She's bloody nosy, that one – tries to get out of me more of Sansa and who she is to me. Well if _I_ don't bloody know I can't tell you about it. She knows I'm lying, keeps prodding, though I don't fall for it, at least I don't think I bloody do, my head's swooning by the end of it.

I go hunting for game on the morn, nab a grouse, and give Elisota more coin for all her trouble. I'm giving it away good as anything but I feel like I'm buying Sansa's life back so she can have as much as she wants. Sansa comes in, all delicate like she's testing an ice-lake. But her cheeks look like they've been scrubbed, and she's wearing one of the farmwoman's dresses – too big, but she could wear a bit of bloody sackcloth and look better than a damned queen. Elisota wraps her arm up to her shoulder. It makes her stand like a brave little battle-wounded soldier. I get her up on Stranger, thinking she's a damned sight more conscious than when she was last up here with me. But there's no hiding her being tucked into me now, arse right up to my crotch. That hair's under my chin, bold as a winter's hearth. We head north again, weather changing slowly. She's not embarrassed – seems perfectly bloody comfortable, actually. Her shoulders drop a bit and I can see that swancurve of her neck and try not to think about biting a big chunk out of her. She rests her head back against me. Hells. I'm just breathing her in – she smells as clean as fresh sheets.

Can't help treating her like she's a moth-wing all day and night. She hasn't complained about camping out again, is just sitting there as if she's on a pillowbed, giving me looks, so damned calm.

I've a fear that the fever will grab her back. All those nights she was shaking and I was too in my cups to care, thinking, she _should_ shiver, like the rest of us. Hells, what an idiot. I bid her come lie next to me, waiting for her to blush and stomp off into the shadows. But she doesn't. She rolls up like a little vole right there at my side.

I'm being gnawed in the stomach by a bear. She's as still as anything. The fire's smacking its last, and each silence afterwards is like something stretching above me, trying to suck me in. Stars are grit in my eyes. I can sense the weight of her. I turn in to her, head on my elbow. All I'd have to do is put my hand out. She's not asleep. Pretending with all her might, but not asleep.

Later, she starts thrashing. I lie there listening, wondering whether I should wake her, and how. Touch her arm? Her hair? Put my hands over her ears and kiss her awake? She suddenly sits up, panicking, thinking she's being attacked by rapers. Maybe that's what she always dreams about. Starts asking why they do it. Gods, I could have done that to you a thousand times. It hurts, lumping me in with them. I've paid for plenty, but at least they make to look like they're having a good roll around, most of the time. Having some lass screaming underneath me turns my stomach. I make her see sense, in my own way, and she lays a little closer.

In the morning, I find I've slung my arm over her, and whip it off quick as anything. Gods, this is getting hard. I want – I want everything I can't have. I'm living in a bloody dreamworld, thinking I can be near her like this. Birthright never changes. I'm nothing more than her guard, seeing her safe. That's what I tell myself, words scuttling around in the back of my skull as I wake her up and she looks at me like a sleepy bloody dormouse, as I give her breakfast, get her on Stranger. I'm nothing.


	13. Chapter 13

**_It's short, but I'm whacking this up double-quick for Joanneblack30!_**

I sit waiting for pheasants after we've ridden for a bit. Part of me is glad to get away, cool my blood down. My head's so full of her, and full of the voice of every person I've ever known telling me why it shouldn't be. Two birds trot out, they're a bit close, but I loose an arrow and get one, just. No screeching, just that loud flap of wings as she careers about, looking for ways out. No way out except into these hands – I grab her and she bloody jabs me, more than once, little daggerstabs right near my eye. Fucking thing. Really bloody hurts, but I snap her neck and it's done.

And then – it's like we're back at that first river. Except this time Sansa has no fear of me dripping with blood, and she could cup me in her bloody hand. Her face is so close, and she's looking like she's done this a thousand times, all assured, and I think – what the hells is happening? And suddenly her hand is on my burns, like she's found a cave of First Men paintings. And she moves it to the other side and I'm growing hard and hoping to Gods she hasn't noticed. Fingers soft as duckdown. My heart's slamming and I try to tell her no and she kisses me, like she's bumped into a wall, didn't quite stop in time. She says don't you want to? and I want to shake her by the shoulders and say I want to fucking have you right here, you beautiful green fucking girl and instead I bat her away, gentle as I can.

Seven sweet fucking hells. She's got me in chains. On a fucking rack. We're riding again, she's putting her head on my chest like nothing's fucking happened, or like _everything's_ fucking happened and she's just as calm as anything about it. She fucking – truth is, it was so bloody quick I didn't get much of anything, didn't taste her, but what happened – happened. This wasn't meant to – it was just supposed to stay in my head. Wasn't it? _Hells_. I feel like a rat in cage, trying to brain myself to death before I get thrown to the dogs.

She called me – Gods – said I was – only time a woman's called me that is when they want something, and it's in a voice like they're in a play and they want coin tucked into their skirts. I don't know what's fucking happened. The ground's rocking.

It's night, and I'm keeping well away from her. She gives me looks under her eyelashes with every feather she plucks off that damned bird. Like she's taught herself a trick better than shooting rabbits or skinning hares. I break. I say if you keep looking at me like that you're going to be in trouble and she says that's the idea. And I say, under my breath, oh to the sweet fucking Gods. And tell her to come over.


	14. Chapter 14

I bring her down onto my knees, and pull her in, gentle as I'm able, and kiss her properly. She's sweeter than any apple. She's - there, and shy but wanting it, and putting her fingers on my mouth and I'm as hard as a bloody anvil but she's just away enough not to notice. And I'm kissing her again, my hands in her flaming hair, thinking, let's just end the world now and that'll be fine.

Hells, this is madness. I'm looking into the maw of a bottomless well. I get our blankets while she's off taking a piss and think, _don't do anything_, for Gods' sakes. She's got her head way up in the damn clouds, doesn't seem to know how dangerous this is – for _me_, if not her. Innocent as a bloody lamb. She comes and lays down next to me, staring at me like I'm a bloody prince or something. She digs, too – tells me I wanted this all along.

I've nowhere to hide. It's like she's slicing me open, carefully, not much blood, just a deadly thin cut, all the way along. She says how many ladies have you kissed and I think, _fuck_, Sansa, how many women do you think have willingly put their face on this? I've never had a woman's mouth on me without having half-fucked them first. But I can't help myself, she's right _there_, and I'm kissing her again, and teasing her, and kissing her, pulling that damned feather from behind her ear and using it on her, putting my fingers on her neck. She's lying there like she'd just let me fucking have her and it's all I can do to rein myself in, remind myself she's quivering like a fletchling because she's _never done this before_.

Fucking Others take me now, I'll go quietly. She's lying there with her head on my shoulder. Well, she'll not get a fever at least I think. Yes, 'cause that's all you are, you great fool, a bloody great fur blanket.

In the morning I've brought her arse right into my lap, and my cock is laid halfway up her back. Fuck. She's bloody awake and all, wriggles round, grinning. Gods, those eyes – like you're on top of the Eyrie with the bright winter sky slapping you round the face. She's kissing me again, getting used to it, and she's so damned warm and I'm thinking Gods, to have your thighs around my ears right now, _then_ you'd give me your bloody wide eyes. She's getting bolder, and I'm pulling her onto me, and her knee's up against my cock and I wrench myself away, talk her down. Talk myself down. Tell her she's got lords waiting for her. That she needs to be a maid. Listen to your own words, man. This can't happen.

She sulks then. Sulks getting up. Sulks when I consent to an inn. Sulks on the horse. Fat bottom lip and little knot on her forehead, not knowing that it's cuter than anything else she's pulled. It just makes me grin, feeling her silence, heavy as an anchor. Fact is, she's sulking 'cause I'm telling her she can't have more of me. Talk about my head bloating up like a pumpkin.

I don't want to think about what happens tonight at the inn, and asking for rooms. One is safer, for keeping the outside world out. Two is safer, for me. And for her. Gods.

We come down to a bloody great waterfall, foaming like an old drunk, loud as anything. Sansa's looking at it like it's a jewel swinging in front of her face. I gibe her about wanting a bath and before I know it, she's risen to it and I'm helping her with her dress and the panic's rising in my throat. Gods. Don't think I've undressed a woman before. Skirts up around their arse is usually enough for me.

I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. How is she suddenly in charge? She's not saying anything, just steps out of her dress and takes her boots and stockings off, furiously, like they're itching. She walks up to the pool, toes right up to the water, like she's forgotten all about me, in her white smock - I can see her shape under it. All of her. Everything's gone dead quiet, watching. She's got her back to me, straight as a sapling, holding her arms stiff by her side, fingers just a bit apart. And I'm about to say, Sansa, I was just joking, you don't have to go in, when she pulls her smock off.


	15. Chapter 15

She's the palest thing I've ever seen. She's limestone, thousands of years old, shaped by water into – _this_. She doesn't turn around, walks in, as if there are no stones, or mud, as if it's a hot bath. She goes straight into that water, knees, hips, water closing over her arse – she's a fucking _vase_ – ribs, and she hasn't made a sound. And – fuck – she's leant in, gone in properly, and swims. She swims, even with that damned half-snapped wrist, and I think that'll fucking teach you, you fucking fool. She's fearless. Stubborn. A bloody Tully fish by the looks of it too. And then she ducks under the falls.

I'm chained down with leadballs on the bank, holding her gown like I'm her bloody dressmaid. I look down at her smock. She's shed her skin and it's just her crazy wolfsoul bobbing around in there. Gods, I can't even see her. She's maybe knocked her head or gulped half the falls _– Fira, almost blue, veins like mountain rivers, staring_. I'm starting to vex, thinking I'm going to have to go in and drag her body out, when she's there again, sealslick head, floating around like she couldn't care less. Pale, pale skin in the dark water. An ice floe.

I don't want her to come out. I want her to come out right now.

She swims to the shallows, lazy, then stands up suddenly, and the water's round her calves. She's there – all of her, bone-naked, dripping. Fuck – those breasts, the curve of her, the little triangle of hair, golden. I'm hard – thank the Gods for her gown. She's holding her chin up like she's the queen of fucking Westeros, like she's _clothed_, and comes out. She stands there asking for her dress. I can't. Can't give it to her. Can't move. Can't stop wanting her more than I've wanted anything in my entire fucking life. Her hair's the colour of a brown fox. Fuck this – I snatch her hand and take her to underneath the trees, pine needles scrunching, and she lets me, no questions.

She's – she's like wax. Her arms, her shoulders, her stomach. She's covered in droplets and little bumps are raised all over her skin. And my fingers are on her, and she's shivering, and my hand's on her breast and Gods, I want to – I have to - I say do you want to and she nods, eyes bigger than ever, big as harvest moons. I lay her down, on her dress.

Fuck, she's wet. For _me_. Wet enough. And I'm pulling her knees apart and moving up to her, and careful, careful, putting myself into her, sliding in. She – Gods, it's like she's got me in her fist. I feel her break and try not to think about it too much, because I'm there, in her, in the whole damned pool of her. My knees in the mud. Hips at her thighs. She's fucking surrounding me, all of me, and I want to burrow as deep as I can into her, hide there, and she's so small and perfect and there's a sweet fucking rush and it's done.

My face is in her neck. She's quiet. She had a palm on my back and she takes it off, lightly. Didn't give her much time to enjoy herself, there. I come up onto my elbows. And I see her face.

She's trying to pretend. Trying to look calm.

And then – a fat tear, like a massive raindrop that's swelled on a leaf, rolls down her cheek

Fuck. - I think I say that, and come out of her, sharpish. She's – she's frightened. No, not frightened. I – fuck. I hurt her. I yank my breeches up, stand. Fuck.


	16. Chapter 16

**This short chapter is for Ally, who has given me quite bonkersly flattering comments which make me very happy. And thanks to EVERYONE for their reviews! It means a lot to me. Over to the big man...**

I'm moving away, away from her, quickly, get out of her sight, before she cries, before you can scare the shit out of her any more. Keep moving.

I hurt her. I fucking hurt her. I – she said she wanted to. I_ asked_ her. I tried to be – no you didn't. Not once you got going. Gods, I should be strung up. She just lay there, all quiet, and I thought – no. You forgot. You forgot about her. I'm stumbling into the pines, don't know where the fuck I'm going, as long as it's_ away_, so she can't see me, so she can breathe.

Darker, darker, crowding in.

I thought she was alright. She – why didn't she say something? Because you were on top of her, you fucking bastard. Of course it fucking hurt. You took her maidenhood, like you said you wouldn't. Bled her. I've got pine needles stuck to my knees. Should've stopped as soon as I'd felt her – Gods, what's wrong with you? Should've not fucking done it at all. But she was standing there, so damned perfect and - you weak fucking dog. I scrape my knuckles into the bark of the trees until they bleed.

The sun's sagging. Where the fuck am I? I don't know how long I've been here. Gods, I don't want to face her, not ever. She'll never look at me like that again, like I'm warming her belly. Like it's Sevenmas. All these fucking trees look the same. She'll look at me like she did when she first saw me, like they all do. I've rats in my gut. Thank the Gods - I can hear the falls again

She's not here. Stranger's shuffling. Her dress is right where we – where I - there's blood, a little circle of it. Where is she? The smock's gone, and her boots. I sit and wait, the falls hissing in my ears. I'm getting damp. What am I going to fucking say to her? Hang on. She can't have gone traipsing into the forest in just her smock. If anyone – I check Stranger. Her bag's gone. Fuck. Her bag's gone. I track the mud, tasting a rising dread like bile. Bootprints, back up the slope. I'm on Stranger before he's ready for me.

Fuck Sansa, what have you done? She's – gone. She left. I did that to her, and she ran. Stranger can't go fast enough. Come on, you stubborn bastard. I'm up on the fields now, and I can't see her prints any more. Track's dusty. She'll head north – won't she? How will she know where to go? The thought of her telling her family that's she's not a maid, and the shame of it for her. Hells, the horizon's wide, tight-lipped. We kick up some pigeons, and they crack into the sky like arrows. She's out there, on foot, easy prey for robbers, rapers, _Lannisters_.

I dismount at a crossroads. A sign, any sign. Cart tracks are fresh enough. A bootprint? Maybe. And then I see it, caught on a thorn – a long, shining hair, fine as goldspin.

I loose it, twine it round my finger.

It's the colour of fire.


	17. Chapter 17

**This one's for mrm1 - thanks for all the comments, and I hope this is enough of a behind-the-scenes for you... **

With every hoofstep, my heart's dragging down to my stomach. What if I've chosen wrong, and I'm moving further and further away from her? I can picture her, a tiny figure in a gown, far off and with her back to me. Always just at the edge of the horizon. And then - strung to a tree. Boot on her face in the mud. Blood drawing from her throat. You'd slice through her skin like a wire through goat's cheese. My mind's filling up.

Thank the Gods - an inn.

There's no cart here. Maybe she didn't take a cart. I go in, have a scan around, take the stairs. Old man coughs and says, stern, can I help you ser and I say I'm looking for a girl, and he says we don't take to that kindly here, and I growl not that kind of a girl you auroch, I'm looking for a girl who's been in my care. He frowns and says there are no girls of any sort here, but I want to believe he's lying and I barge upstairs and shoulder the doors, him gooseflapping behind me. Rooms are all empty aside from a couple of gobby travellers. Fuck.

I buy some oats and some wine from the old man who isn't looking best pleased. Stranger's lathered, giving me the whites of his eye but I say come on boy, we're not done yet.

It's getting dark. She's out there, with the night pulling itself around her. I know she can make a fire, but she's no weapons, save the dagger, and she didn't take a blanket. She'll freeze. Starve. I shouldn't have left her. Should've stayed, and stroked her face, and mopped her up. Back at the crossroads. There's fuck all moon.

As soon as there's a breath of light I've my heels in Stranger again. Hardly slept. Sky's the colour of the dress she was wearing when we left the battle, the one that had bound my hand, the one that she tore with her teeth and wet in the river. I've lost that hair I had round my finger. Has she been out all night and woken up drenched in morndew, woken up shivering like a halfwit?

I find two more inns in the morning, and kick all the doors in. One man goes for his sword but I draw mine and he looks sick and puts his hands up. A room in the other inn has a girl, red-haired, rolling around and my heart thunks and I'm about to take the bowels out of the man she's on top of when she looks around and screams and she's a whore with a dirty great scarslash across her face. The landlord says I know you, you're the Hound, there are people looking for you, and I say you going to tell them then with my finger in his chest and he says not if you make it worth my while to guard my mouth, and I stuff coin in his greedy fist and start off again.

Rain's coming down now, grey, dead rain. I'm being spat in the face by a column of people on either side of me – Fira, Father, the housekeep, Fetch, anyone I've ever known or cared about.

She's dead. She must be dead by now. She's a wolf though – remember that. No – not on her own. Not with one hand all wrapped up. Gods, why did she run? If she wanted to punish me, it fucking worked. Hells. I gave her my word. Told her I'd see her safe, and home, and – I've failed her. I feel like I've been knifed, all over. Another inn. Stranger's shaking. I take him to the stables, get him properly seen to.

Nothing but a clot of steaming drunks. Might as well throw myself on that fucking great fire now. I ask the landlady, who's slouching, three mugs of ale in each hand, if she's seen a girl here. What sort of girl she says, suspicious, and I think - _she_ _has_ - and say the sort that shouldn't be on her own. I need more than that she says and I think straight-backed, wolfblood in her veins, graceful as a damned deer, hair like the sky on fire, the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen in your whole life and I say this high, sixteen, red hair down to here. She thins her eyes at me and says what if I have? And I start to lose it and say if you have, you'll tell me where she is and she says what's it to you and I say I'm her escort and she says not much of one and I think about taking her fucking jaw off. Where is she, is she here, I say and make to go up the stairs and she stops me and says I'll get her and takes the door.

Hells. Let it be her. It has to be her. The drinkers are looking at me like I'm a wyvern. Landlady comes back. She's coming, she says, offhand. My legs have gone. Gods. I haven't eaten in a day. Hand's shaking. I watch the door, heart thumping a bloody footguard's tattoo.

Why doesn't she come? She – she doesn't want to see me. Maybe it's not her. Landlady's eyeing me - how did she pay for her room, I ask. She tightens her mouth, shrugs. I see Sansa looking at her necklace, her wolfbrooch, holding them up to the firelight in the woods. I stand up again. Did she give you jewels? I say and she tries to look blank. I've a rush of relief, like a wave, and lean over her, coin in her fucking liar's face. You'll give them back, I say. She puts her fists in her pockets. Don't fool me woman, I say, wanting to pluck her cunting eyes out of her head. And then her eyes dart over my shoulder and I think – she's _there_.


	18. Chapter 18

Sansa's a few steps away, the fucking widest eyes I've ever seen, like I'm about to pick her up in my claws and fly off with her. Her hand's bound over her chest again. A different dress. She keeps looking at me as the landlady shoves past and puts the jewels in her hands. I feel like I've been warhammered. She's alive. And then she backsteps, and disappears up the stairs.

I'm after her like a shot. Gods, she's _here_, I've _found_ her, and she's still fucking running away from me. Don't fucking run from me, Sansa. All this time and she was safe. I'm chasing her, not caring if I sound like a rampaging madman. I'm not losing her again. She whips through a door and FUCK – she's slammed it on my fucking hand. I trick her, crash into the room and I'm there, facing her, and I just want to fucking grab her and shake her and put her head to my chest. Honestly, she's got that look on her that she had in her chamber at the battle, a deer ready to bolt. But something else too – like she could hit me.

And my anger's loosing, just a great fucking falling of relief and sadness and guilt, snow off a roof. She's telling me she's not sorry and she says _you left me_ and the words are like arrows, sailing down in an arc from afar, one, two, three, and they floor me and I stop my breath-heaving. Hells. She's speaking madness like she wasn't any good and the shame of it comes over me like a thick yellow fog. What have I done to her, that she can think it's _her_ fault. I'm a dog. I tell her, it was me, everything was down to me. There's a stench in the room, like vomit. Hells, who's been in here?

I'm on her bed. I'm so spent I could lie down and die right here. She's tucked up against the wall. She'll never touch me again, not how she did. You've ruined it. She tells me how she got here - the cart tracks at the crossroads - and I try not to think of her rolling around on a pile of turnips as her thanks. Tells me how she paid for her stinking room – giving her jewels away for a straw bed, you green girl. And I tell her how I looked for her. Our words are careful, like we're testing the depth of a river.

Gods, she's got it in for this hand. It's like it's been plunged in ice. Or fire.

We go downstairs to eat. Landlady looks at me like she's been feasting on lemons. Sansa's still wary. There's a crevasse between us. But she stuffs her face and tells me she got drunk on cider. Two fucking fog-eyed dunders are making eyes at her – seems they were her company last night. Hells, what did I abandon her to? Alemouthed lunks, breathing filthy songs into her face. No wonder she got in her cups.

We're like Stranger and her mare when they first met. She's still not smiling, not quite, but I'm hoping to the Gods that she's losing her fear. More than that. That she'll – give me her pardon. I don't care about anything else, I know I can't have her. Just as long as she trusts me again. She wants to go back upstairs, and I go with her, but hang back at the door. I'll want to wrap myself around her, never let her go. I have to – show her I can rule myself.

The landlady plonks more beer on the table. Kissed and made up then she says and I say leave me be, woman, and then I call her back, say can you wash this, handing her Sansa's dress and she looks hard at me then and I try not to show my shame. I'm drinking more ale than I should. She's said I could still take her back, back to Winterfell. Each gulp tastes like relief.

Those two fools are shouting over at me. Hells, I could put a sword at each of their throats and they'd just give me those watery half-toothed grins. One of them staggers over to me. Piss off, you old goat. Is our redhead well, m'lord? he croons and I can near see the beer misting the air. Don't fucking m'lord me I say and she's fine so you'd best back off. He says oh, but I'm glad to hear it, she's a precious one.

Another man, younger, earwigs and comes on over, slaps a hand on the drunk's back, says are you talking of our Fira? You sound like you know her well, I say, sharp. No, not well, he says, I spent the night with her last night is all. I stand up, hold his face to the table. Not like that he says, squirming, I swear, I swear it. I let him go and he rubs his neck and looks at me, eyes like a stoat's, not as afraid as he should be. So _you're_ the one she was running away from, he says, bold as a brasspiece. And who the hells are you I say. I've a few years on him, and more scars, but he's not got much else going for him. Scrawny as fuck, hair like a scarecrow's.

He holds up his palms. I brought her here, friend, seeing as you ask so politely, he says. Well, I'm here now and don't friend me, I say, and he says, fresh as you like, and she's happy about that is she? And I'm feeling the rage brew in me and I say what business is it of yours you cunt and he says maybe I should go and see her, check you haven't done her in and I say you'd best hold your tongue before I put you back down on this table and wrench it out of your fucking throat and he looks a bit more afeared then and says alright, friend. The old drunk says, like he hasn't heard any of it, ah, but she's a beauty isn't she and I say ay, and then sit down and say ay again, and the strawhaired one looks at me differently then. Landlady comes over and says I'll throw you out if make any more trouble, I don't care how big you bloody are, and I give up, sit quiet, drink, as the racket grows around me.

She took my sister's name. I hear it, over and over, and hear it mixed with hers, on every breath. She's two rooms down from me. Gods, I might as well be lying on a nailbed. Itches to fuck. She's here, alive, and letting me stay with her. The walls are collapsing, shelving gently onto my head.


	19. Chapter 19

**Just a little wee one...**

I rise early, go downstairs. Head's a sea-fret. There's a kitchenmaid whose smile falls into her pockets when she catches my burnt side. I lean on the door frame, say I'm after food for my onward journey, can you rustle up anything, there's coin in it for you if you can and she softens a little then. Gods, Sansa. I'll be nothing more than a sack of feathers soon enough.

The kitchen lass disappears and I step outside. Rain's coming down, little blunts. Not happy riding weather. I get to the stable trough, chuck water over my neck, scrub up a bit. I'm heading back in and there's a cough and the cart man's there, his horse reluctant, loud mud-sucks. He nods at me and the cart is sliding past and I clear my throat a bit and say, my thanks. He jerks at me, surprised. For bringing her here, I say. He smiles, but carefully, like I'm about to catch him with a whip. You'll tell her I wished her well, he says. I nod, he rolls off, and I think, no I bloody won't, _friend._

Kitchenmaid taps me on the back. She has bread and cheese wrapped up, Sansa's dress – I take that, dead quick – and a mug of milk which she thrusts at me, and she bloody beams when I magic a coin from her ear. This being kind lark's not so bad. But I'd best save it for her. I ask about horses, too – lass reckons there'll be some at a town up west. I don't like the idea of that, straight into Harrenhall's mouth, but if she wants to ride alone, I'll do it.

She doesn't, though. She'd said - at her door, all dozy-eyed, her hair falling over her chest - that she'd ride with me, 'cause of her wrist. And here she is, brought up against me, just as before. Except not as before. I can't tell what she's thinking, whether she'd rather a portcullis was slammed between her back and my chest. But, slowly, it's as if the rain's getting in her bones, and I swear she sags against me just a little, and then a little bit more.

When we stop to rest Stranger, she waits for me to help her down, I'm certain of it, and I put my hands about her waist and lift her, and it's as if she's just air, air and water. And she puts her arm around me and her cheek is on my chest and it's all I can do not to just bloody crack apart, and I think _forgive me forgive me forgive me_ with my face in her hair, crushing her to me, waiting for her to evaporate. Oh to the Sevens. I feel battered, worse than any battle save the last one. I tell her, a day late, two days late, I tell her sorry and she takes my hand and we sit there, bread getting soggy, being rained on.

She's so bloody strong, in her own way. I'm kindling next to her, I swear it. She has me rubbing to splinters and dust in her hand, whether she knows it or not. She's not mine - but I'm - hers.

I get her to an inn, shy of Lord Harroway's Town. Frey horses. First people who might recognise us. I don't like it much. Sansa's all hopeful - she _does_ want to reach her family, fool, not hole up with you for the winter. I go in to get the measure of it, hood up, my sword hand itching.


	20. Chapter 20

Three Freys in the corner. Half-cut. They don't pay too much heed to me, and I keep my face turned away, ask the landlord for a room. I say if you don't mind I've a girl and he says what sort of girl and I say what sort do you think, the sort to take a tumble with. And he screws up his nose – it's got a shine on it like it's been polished all day long – until I press coin into his hand and say have a care man, it's been a long journey on the road and he puts his lips together and nods and says no more. One of the men says, loud, hear that boys, we've a wantingwoman under our roof tonight and I say I shouldn't think I'll be sparing her much, friend and they're all smiles, pissed as anything. I duck out, imagining running them through, all three of them snared on my sword at once, stacked up.

I whisk Sansa past, quick as I'm able, and thank the Gods they don't look at either of us too hard. They seem too bloody cheerful for Stark bannermen though. And why they're not further west with the rest of them I can't fathom. Best find out. Later. She's taking it well, the one room and what I've called her, doesn't even blush, just looks at me as calm and wise as a damned maester. I leave her up there.

Back in the tavernroom, and one of the Freys has his hands on a serving-lass who doesn't seem to mind too much. I ask the landlord for food to be sent up, and a bath. There's no bath, just hot water he says and calls out to the lass, who's squealing and slapping the man's hand off. I neck a quick wine, in the corner, well away.

The girl's just going when I get back up, gives me a look like she'd put her legs round my waist for nothing. I'm caught at the door, not sure where to put myself, but Sansa bids me stay.

I do everything too loud – yawning, crashing out on the bed. The air's changed again. My bloody heart's the loudest thing in the room. I close my eyes – Gods, I am wearied – and hear her go over to the bowl on the table. Boots thud off. Water, like a lute playing. I have a look. Her back's to me, and she's loosed her dress a little, shoulders glowing. Hells, she's handspun, turning in a jeweller's window. She looks at me and I've no time to shut my eyes, drink her in instead, not caring that she's caught me. I want so much to right it, make her feel as she should. I go over to her.

There was once a girl I saw, a few times, early in Robert's reign. When the boy was up to my knees, and not yet a vicious shit. Before then, I'd turn them over, get it done quick – they'd sooner not look at me, anyway. But she – Ysmay – had spark, not much afeared of anything, least of all me, and she'd tug me by the ears and push my head down and laugh like a bloody mad goat. She caught an ague, got boils, leaking, and was turned out of the whorehouse. I made sure she was buried, outside the walls, on the hill.

So I know how it goes. I kiss Sansa and she lets me and I help her with her dress. I'm kissing her feet, bringing her smock up. Her hipbone's like the jut of a shield. Stomach, breasts, wrist. The inside of her elbow. She looks at my chest – my scars – like she's deciding where to make an incision.

I lie her down and she looks frightened, just a little. No, wolf-girl, this is what I should have done last time. She warms my fingers, feels like a mudpool. I put my mouth on her cunt and she tastes of cream and the sea and I lap her like a cat and she's so quiet and I think I'll do this all night if I have to, I'm going to get you there, and after a time she starts to stiffen here and there, just a little.

She's better than any ambers.

And there she is, and she's spent, and her leg's going like the clappers, cheeks the colour of an apple in midsummer.

I gather her up to me. My cock's raging in my breeches, but he's going nowhere. I put my nose to the sweat on her neck. Smells like sageherb.

We eat in bed, and she's sitting there, naked to the waist, gobbling her food and I think, she's like a whole bloody Southron pantry. Cake and ale and almonds, sweet onion and honey. She's digging again, about me and my amazing conquests with women, but I'm having none of it.

Later, she's laid out, squashed up next to me, eyes drooping. That curve of her arse - I swear I could scrunch her up and bake her in an oven. I tell her that I saw a dire-wolf once, when I was a boy, up to my knees in snow, and it was there, eyes stripping me to my core. I just stood there, and it took some steps closer, and I could see its breath, and then it sniffed the air and was gone. My father got the horses out, searched the woods for three days. He said I'd been lying, wanting a story to scare the girls with. Was it you I saw, Sansa? I ask her, but she's fallen asleep, her shoulder blades pulling apart like wings.

She's a little animal in the night, all knees and elbows as she dreams. I'm too big to be in this bed with her but the Others couldn't drag me out. It's the sort of thing I'd never let myself imagine, before.

The early morning, too. There's a light like wheat-ale and I fold her all up into me. She puts her fingers on my burns, like I'm a twisting journey on a map she's tracing. Gods, I want to fuck her there and then, but it's too soon. I daredn't.

I head down to fetch food - she's got a hunger on her for a girl the width of a silver bloody birch. Her stomach starts riots. I swear she'd have my fingers off if I didn't – on your guard. Freys are up early, sour heads by the looks of it, though brave smiles all round, like they've come out of battle unwounded. I hang at the kitchen door – no one's about – then sit, the furthest table away, thinking how I might get the measure of them. And then I hear it.

A howl, dead quiet, from one of them. The hairs on the back of my neck stand like spearmen.


	21. Chapter 21

The other two laugh, and the howler says, two little snappers down, then. I'd never have thought it, says another. Well, when the big wolves are away, he says. Shouldn't have left a cripple and a kneehigh in charge of the North, should they? – So the Greyjoy boy turned then? one asks. Must've, mustn't he? he says. Been brewing all those years under Ned Stark's thumb. Burnt them to a crisp, it's said. Once an Ironborn, always an Iron – she's still standing, is she? he says suddenly to me as I'm getting up. Ay, just about, I say, turning away, cool as I can. One of them stretches, says, Gods, I need a piss.

How do I tell her? She knows something's up – I got her out of there as quick as I could, the men out of sight, thank fuck – and now we're riding, west for now. I don't know where to. We can't go north now, not to Winterfell, any road. Fuck. I'm about to break her bloody heart.

She's sick, onto her boots. She's gone so pale I could put my hands right through her. And she cries, of course she does. Her brothers are dead. I see Fira again, reciting rhymes and stamping in the mud. Her wet hair clinging her like grass snakes. Me shouting at the maids as they cleared her room.

Sansa hardly speaks for the rest of the day and the night, just hanging onto me like I'm a branch over a cliff-edge. I can feel her thoughts draining out of her. Bloodless.

We're heading to the Riverlands, her brother's armies. Into the bloody Young Wolf's jaws. It's like I've bad wine sloshing around in my gut. Having to ride through a load of bloody North-pledging bannermen, who'll not be taking kindly to me. Well, that's my part in all this, just a fucking carthorse, delivering her to them and then – Gods, if they don't bloody string me up first – fucking the hells off. I put my nose in her hair, thinking, I'll not have your smell of pines and maples much longer, my heart like a millstone.

Next day, and her eyes are like jewels that need scrubbing. She looks so bloody tired, shoulders tucked into herself like a crone's. There's a small camp up ahead, a few men and no hiding from it, so I think fuck it, let's find out what's happening. I'll take them all if I have to.

I leave Sansa with Stranger and stalk over to them. Orange sigil, bull moose. Hornwoods. A pot over a fire, smoking. It's the Hound, whispers one, not quietly enough, and their hands go to their hilts. Ay, it is, I say, still walking, and I could kill you all right now, but I'm not looking for trouble. I've got Sansa Stark with me, I'm looking to get her to your Young Wolf. They frown, look over my shoulder.

She's at King's Landing, isn't she? says one. I got her out of there before they killed her, I say. She _is_ a redhead, says one to the others, out of the side of his mouth. How do we know you're not kidnapping her, keeping her for yourself? another says. I can't help snorting. If I was doing that, you think I'd be up here risking my fucking neck and not with her legs wrapped around me in Braavos? Where's your man? They're mute. Look, you can fucking tail us if you have to, I say, impatient. They glance at each other. We can't, says one, under his breath. We've got to get back up for the funeral. He's a day west, says another, jerking his neck. Follow the river.


	22. Chapter 22

I say my thanks, and walk back to Sansa, imagining her legs wrapped around me in Braavos, and expecting arrows in my neck, but none come. Tired of fighting a war that has no good end for them, maybe. We move past them, with the far river on our right, a hard glint on it like a miser's eye.

My time with her's short now. I _want_ to bundle her under some blankets and smuggle her over the sea, anywhere, away from here. Squirrel away into the earth where no one knows her but me.

We come to a farm, run by a blind old woman, pay her to give us lodging. Saddest place I've ever seen. Smells like death. The woman knows her way round with her fingers well enough, and talks her own damned jaw off. I'm watching Sansa listen to her, back as straight as a young willow. She catches my eye and I pretend to nod asleep and she almost smiles. Gods, I'd do almost any fool thing just to see her face turn into a sunrise again, just once before I leave her. Old woman talks herself to sleep – stops halfway through a word – and I have her to myself again.

The room's bloody freezing, and there's a stench of shit and hay seeping through the walls. I'd happily just hold onto her all night long like a bloody sea barnacle, but Sansa's a step ahead, her fingers pulling at my breeches. I'm not sure what she wants. I'm not going to bed her if it's going to make her cry. But there's a look in her eyes – determined, but far away, too. And then we're both naked as newborns, and she's staring at my cock, eyes big as serving plates, with just a whisper of a grin.

I get her into bed, all that smooth candlewax of her, all that bloody honeycomb, and I lick her cunt again, add thumbs and fingers, thinking of her mouth on my cock, and of me in her, and of her laid out on a feasting table, all mine. I can hear her breathing like she's climbing the Eyrie, step by step, and she shuts her thighs over my ears and opens them again, and finally she grabs hold of my head, shudders, sudden, bids me stop.

And she's as slippery as a whelk, and so bloody beautiful, and she's reaching for my cock and her fingers are like the sting of a nettle and I think, it's alright for me to – and I go in, Gods, as gentle as I can bear to, not too much, watching her, watching her, and she's alright I think, and then she makes a little sigh and I lean to her and into her and her cunt's gripping me and fuck, she's everything I ever wanted, and I could drink goblets and goblets of her. Her heel's at the back of my knee and I think, I could be putting a babe in her right now, and I think, I don't care, and I think, it will never be this good again. I crash out at her shoulder, thinking _you'll always be mine, in here_.

She wakes me, curled up at my stomach, knees tucked in. She starts saying all the things I want her to say and never want to hear her say. _I don't want you to leave_ and _can't you stay_ and I have to stop her, before she says - what I think she's going to say. Oh Gods, Sansa.

I tell her, as I've told her before, of the high lord she'll have someday at her side, and she turns her back to me, and I think of putting my boot in that fucking lord's face.

She's on her side, her bandaged hand sticking out like a gull with a broken wing. The morning's put a dusty gleam on her. She's sanded from damned chalk. How can she – want me? It's like she's gently bashing her head against my chest and I have to turn her round, set her off, away from me.

I swear she's leached all the heat from me in the night. I get up, out of that swaddling, thinking, I'll never be that warm again. The door down the hall's ajar - the woman's holding a spoon to the old man's mouth. Death's got a leg over him already, I reckon. She's got oats and milk curdling over the fire, and I grab a woodspoon, steal some. I may be blind but my ears are sharp as a new knife, she says, suddenly behind me. Alright, alright, woman, I say, can I have some if I ask nicely. Ay, she says, pinchgrinning, and there's some for your young lass too.

Course – she can't see my burns. That's why she talks to me like I'm – just any other man. Even Sansa didn't, first off. She bids me sit and eat, starts tumbling out stories of her children again, her brothers, sisters, her whole bloody family tree, and I'm looking at my bowl, my insides clotting up like the oatmeal at the thought of Sansa never being my young lass.

She's feeling it too, I can see it. Gone into a sulk again, a lump under the bedcloth, though it doesn't make me laugh as it did before. I drag her up, practically, bid her dress, try not to touch her too much. It's a different day.

She's quiet as we ride. I've squeezed the hope out of her. I had to. She's on a hiding to nothing, how can she not see it? She's her hood up, but the sky has her pale face, and there are flowers the colour of her hair flashing in the bracken. Gods, I'm going to see her everywhere.

And then there's a man up ahead, pointing a fucking arrow at us. And then five more, circling, and another stepping up out of nowhere, putting his sword to Sansa's throat.


	23. Chapter 23

How the hells I didn't hear them - my head's thick with her. They know me, and I think, Gods, have I got her all this way only to bleed to death on the other side of the fucking hill? I can't beat six arrowmen. But something changes. Sansa speaks – _commands_ – them to lower their weapons, tells them who she is, vouches for me. One of them recognises her and their bows come down.

Karstarks. The swordbearer, young lad with old eyes, sends one of them ahead, says, we're but a few leagues away from the camp, no more. I say you'd best apologise, and he looks at her, says our humble apologies, my lady, I didn't know you and she says you should apologise to the both of us and he does it through gritted teeth, and I think, you'd be wearing your spleen as a fucking noose if I had my way, you cunt, for having that blade up against her neck.

The air is different now. It's like a smell, just on the edge of your nose - the world, coming back in. The one where I'm a scrap of middleborn scum and she's sister to the King of the damned North. The men either side have been looking sly at us, I can see it. I'm keeping my hands well away from her, nothing touching.

And then we're at the top of the hill, and there it is. All I've ever known and never wanted to see again, though the colours are different - men and weapons and horses and training and tents. Mud, churned to fuck. And the sounds - voices all mixed up together in a fog, except for the cursing and spitting. The threefold gashes of metal on wood, metal on metal, wood in the earth. Cold rubbed hands. Pinched cheeks. Eyes alert, and suspicious as we pass. Nudging elbows. My stomach's gone as cold as an icestore.

Sansa's got a look on her as she gets off, hopeful, _encouraging_, like I'm an animal she's been training to do tricks. Every fucking vein in my body is coursing like a mountain river, everything in me wanting to turn Stranger round and just go. I watch her duck into the tent, that long hair streaking down her back like autumnrash. I see it spread all over the pillow, my hands full of it.

Eyes are on me. They make me bloody itch. I yank the arm of some scrap of a squire, and say you got wine on you and he says no ser and I say well if you get me some quick I won't chop both your arms off and he scuttles away. Gods, if ever I had a thirst on me it's _now_. I feel fucking sick. What does she think's going to happen? They're going to welcome me as their ownborn, give me a keep, give me _her_?

Squire's back. Sour Dornish pissblood never tasted so good.

Sansa's here again at my shoulder. Those eyes. Pale leaves when the light's blasting through them. I'd do anything for them, except what she wants, to bend my fucking knee and beg for – something. I follow her in.

The Stark woman has a jaw on her like a metal brace. I know as soon as I see her that Sansa's happy ending is going to fire-curl to nothing. That everything will be as I've said it must. And then her brother's there, the Young Wolf himself, older than I remember, though not as wise as he thinks. He speaks as his mother does, the words smoothed out, brickmud, giving nothing away. They're all looking at me like I'm a sinew in their teeth they can't get out, and he bids me go outside again so they can talk to her on their own.

Wine's finished. Where's that bloody squire? I move off a bit, see to Stranger, who's scaring the shit out of a couple of green horsehands. He snorts onto my hand, slobbers. You and me, boy. I'm praying she's the sense to say nothing at all in there. For her sake, not mine.

He's almost as ugly as you. A voice behind me. Bolton, the Dreadfort man, dark cunt if ever I saw one, a face that's a smile and a frown without being either. You can fuck off, I say. You're mistaken Clegane, he says, it's you who'll be fucking off soon enough, maybe with my sword between your shoulder blades. Come on then, I say, ready as anything for a proper fight – I could do with some blood misting the air. He just looks at me, a smirk that isn't a smirk. You'd rip his face off and he'd have another ready underneath. Ah, so that's what she sees in you, those manners of yours, he says. I spit on the floor. Lord Stark's commanded you back, he says. What, not calling him the King of the North? I say. His eyes harden, then.

Back inside, and the Young Wolf and his hard bitch of a mother are waiting for me. They don't speak, he just shuffles his feet a little, and I think, Gods, you green boy. I can see you're fucking scared out of your mind, just one halfstep ahead of all your men, even if no one else can. And then she's here, standing between us all, looking from him to me.

Her brother finds his voice then, and it's threaded with wire, and he says the things I knew he would, and I think, I don't need to hear this and cut him off, say I'll be going then. And something breaks in Sansa, a perfect glaze-plate cracked open, and she pleads and she says _I love him_ and I see the words engraved on a Valerian blade and sent straight into my gut, a onetime perfect strike, and she looks at me and she says _please don't go_.

And I think, _my wolfling girl_, and I turn heel, and leave.


End file.
